out when the rates for successive months in the counties and towns are examined. In the first month the town mortality is 27 per cent. above the rural rate, in the second month 121 above it, and the excess then goes on increasing until in the sixth month it amounts to no less than 273 per cent. This is the month in which the difference is greatest, though it remains throughout the rest of the year at a not very much lower point.” This progressive increase is a most significant fact, and it is much to be wished that instead of concluding his examination at the limit of one year of age, the Registrar had continued it, say up to five years, so that he might have been able to form some notion of the further loss of life which falls upon the children in the districts where their mothers are employed in the mills and factories. There is not space here to reproduce the two tables in which the Registrar-General enumerates the causes of death in the rural and town districts, together with the ages at which death takes place. But these tables are of such extreme importance that it may be well to compare some of the more general causes of death. -------------------------------+----------+--------------- | | Preston, CAUSES. | Rural | Leicester, |Districts.|and Blackburn. -------------------------------+----------+--------------- Premature Birth | 1381 | 2279 Diarrhœal Diseases | 481 | 3961 Convulsions and Diseases of | | the Nervous System | 1381 | 3776 Diseases of Respiratory Organs | 2105 | 3701 Atrophy | 1738 | 2734 ---------------------------------------------------------- The following table shews the period of death in the two districts respectively:-- ----------+----------------+------------------- | |Preston, Leicester, Age. |Rural Districts.| and Blackburn. ----------+----------------+------------------- | Deaths. | Deaths. 1 Month | 3488 | 4947 2 Months | 985 | 2130 3 ” | 707 | 2049 4 ” | 673 | 1967 5 ” | 618 | 1749 6 ” | 461 | 1584 7 ” | 483 | 1475 8 ” | 483 | 1226 9 ” | 454 | 1317 10 ” | 476 | 1220 11 ” | 455 | 1110 12 ” | 434 | 1029 ----------+----------------+-------------------